6 Write-ins are in the winners bracket (FF8, MML2, RE, Soul Blade, Ape Escape, Tony Hawk)15 Games in the winners bracket are some form of RPG (not going to list all)Resident Evil is in the winners bracket, both Silent Hill and RE2 are not

Our first match:

6. Symphony of the Night18. Bushido Blade12. PaRappa the Rapper1. Final Fantasy 7

All losers will be shunted into the next round of the loser's bracket.

Now here we fucking go. I am a relatively ardent defender of Final Fantasy 7. There is a lot that is silly, ham-fisted, and overblown about FF7. There is a lot that is silly, ham-fisted, and overblown about ALL of Final Fantasy. At the time it came out there just wasn't anything quite like it, with the marriage of the anime melodrama to cutting edge cutscenes and far-less-than cutting edge cutscenes, the merging of video and pre-rendered backgrounds working in tandem with familiar RPG mechanics, the customization fun of the Materia system seeming freer and more interesting than the Magicite system, chocobo racing as a minigame that seemed like it could be its entire game -- FF7 gets a lot of flack for all its many flaws, but it's far from an awful game. It's a highly overrated one, but it had its time and its place, and I still enjoy going back to poke at it every couple of years.

Bushido Blade is stealing my FF7 vote.

The closest a game has yet come to recapturing Bushido Blade in my eyes is Samurai Gunn, and it's a fundamentally different beast. The atmosphere and the high stakes gameplay are similar, but the actual way the two games go about recreating a simultaneously patient and ludicrously fast samurai duel feel vastly different. Nothing has ever quite been Bushido Blade, not even Bushido Blade 2. It's astonishing that no one has managed to improve upon it with a slicker, more modern release. Square was at their most wildly creative, like a lot of companies, during the PSX era, and Bushido Blade stands alongside Einhander in their two biggest creative successes for the generation in my eyes.

Symphony of the Night is Symphony of the Night. I'm not sure I could say anything truly bad about that game if I tried.

Parappa is the victim of circumstance here, as my mad respect and appreciation for its existence just don't translate to the short time that I actually played the thing. Maybe if my disc had worked better, I'd be believing' in it a little harder.

I remember being awed by the FF7 backdrop graphics, and then being just dragged out of immersion by the 10 polygon character models. I thought I wouldn't see worse, but then Xenogears happened. Every single zoom-in shot. Man.

Friday wrote:7's backdrop shit is gorgeous as fuck to this day. I will fight you. With. Uh. Tifa's six tit polygons.

what, I said that the backdrops were great. I was complaining of the juxtaposition with low-poly (or low-pixel, in Xenogears' case) character models mucking it all up. YOU COULD POKE AN EYE OUT WITH THOSE

I didn't like Tenchu when I tried it at a friend's, never played FM3, and really can absolutely not bear to vote for Chrono Cross. I tried playing it again when I was alone for those months and couldn't make it out of the first town because everything in the game (everything:dialog, combat, animations, transitions, cut scenes) is so damned slow I just couldn't bear it, even in fast forward. Especially (having played most of the game when it came out) knowing just how much backtracking and busy-work the game requires. It's bad.

Vandal Hearts is a simple joy for a TRPG fan and was like a nice little dessert after I played FFT. It gets the only vote.

I really really like FF9. I never went back to it again after I finished it, but it exists as a wonderful memory and I kind of want to keep it that way. Iiiii think I like Lunar better though. They're both nostalgic and charming, but Lunar hit me better right in the animes than FF9's monkey tails did. And as good as Soul Blade is, and as much as it was kinda my jam in the arcade, Legend of Mana is just so gosh damned unique and pleasant.